In the related art, there is provided a terminal cover which is attached to a terminal device having screw terminals arranged in upper and lower steps of a stepped portion (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Publication No. S62-195863).
A terminal device will be described in detail by taking a relay 1 shown in FIGS. 8 to 10 as an example. The relay 1 includes a housing 2 which is fixed such that one surface (hereinafter referred to as “lower surface”) of the housing 2 faces toward a fixing target (not shown) such as a distribution board or the like. The housing 2 is made of, e.g., a synthetic resin. The housing 2 has a rectangular shape when viewed at the upper side thereof (at the opposite side to the fixing target). In the vicinity of one end (hereinafter referred to as “front end”) of the housing 2 in a long side direction of the upper surface (hereinafter referred to as a “front-rear direction”), there is provided a stepped portion including an upper step 21 and a lower step 22 which extend along the front end and are provided side by side in the front-rear direction. In the stepped portion, the low step 22 (close to the front end) is more depressed than the upper step 21 (distant from the front end) (In other words, the lower step 22 is smaller in upward protrusion dimension than the upper step 21).
At the upper step 21 and lower step 22, a plurality of (four, in the drawings) screw terminals 31 and a plurality of (four, in the drawings) screw terminals 32 are respectively arranged side by side in a short side direction (hereinafter referred to as “left-right direction”) of the housing 2 along each steps of the stepped portion 21 and 22. In each of the screw terminals 31 and 32, the axial direction of a screw is oriented in an up-down direction and the head portion of the screw is directed upward.
Two screw terminals (hereinafter referred to as “signal terminals”) 33, to which signal lines are connected, are arranged in the rear end portion of the relay 1. In the housing 2 of the relay 1, there is accommodated a switching unit (not shown) which turns on and off the electric conduction between the upper screw terminals 31 of the upper step 21 and the lower screw terminals 32 of the lower step 22 in response to an electric signal inputted to the signal terminals 33. The switching unit may be a mechanical contact point driven by an electromagnet, a semiconductor switch, or the combination of the mechanical contact point and the semiconductor switch which are connected to each other in parallel.
On the upper surface of the housing 2, there are provided partitions 231, 232 and 233 which divide the screw terminals 31, 32 and 33 arranged side by side in the short side direction and a pair of sidewalls 24 which interposes all the screw terminals 31 and 32 arranged at the front end side (i.e., except for the signal terminals 33).
In the aforementioned relay 1, as shown in FIG. 10, it is sometimes the case that electric wires 41 connected to the upper screw terminals (hereinafter referred to as “first screw terminals”) 31 of the upper step 21 of the stepped portion are positioned above the lower screw terminals (hereinafter referred to as “second screw terminals”) 32 of the lower step 22 of the stepped portion. In this case, when electric wires 42 are attached or detached by operating the second screw terminals 32, the electric wires 41 connected to the first screw terminals 31 become obstacles, thereby impairing the workability.
The conventional terminal cover is not designed to solve the aforementioned problem and is not capable of improving the workability.